


Inside Out

by xaritomene, xrysomou



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, The Academy Is...
Genre: Friendship/Love, Ghosts, Homophobia, Homophobic Actions (past), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaritomene/pseuds/xaritomene, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xrysomou/pseuds/xrysomou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bill is haunted, Gabe is his reluctant ghostbuster, Supernatural references abound, and things are never as clear-cut as they seem.</p>
<p>
  <i>"Bilvy, Bill, there's no such thing as ghosts."</i>
</p>
<p>(Please see notes for the explanation of the 'homophobia' tag - none of the characters in this fic act homophobically themselves.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside Out

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for clarification of the 'homophobia' and 'homophobic actions (past)' tags. Please read these warnings if you think this could be triggering for you!

When Bill opened the door clutching a baseball bat, Gabe could just tell something was wrong.

“Um,” he said warily, “I – didn’t actually get that much over the phone, other than ‘please get over here now’, ‘bastard’, and ‘die, die, die’, so... I’m guessing it’s not a booty call. Is everything OK?”

“Come on in,” Bill said, ever the consummate host, swinging the baseball bat cheerily.

Gabe paused. “...thanks.”

Bill turned to him after shutting to door, and said, “OK, so, you’ve gotta hear me out _before_ you have me committed, OK?”

“Oh, that’s never good,” Gabe said guardedly. “This isn’t like the time with the giant butterflies and the talking cat, is it?”

“No,” Bill’s expression was chronically unamused. “That was the time I had a fever of a hundred and four. And you thought I was _high_ ,” he added accusingly. “Which, thanks.”

“In my defence,” Gabe held his hands up, “there wasn’t much of a difference.”

“Well, that’s not my-” Bill suddenly stopped and spun round wildly, brandishing the baseball bat. His eyes scanned the empty air before he blew out a breath. “OK. OK. Right, look, this is different, and it’s gonna sound really _weird_ , but – there’s something in my apartment.”

“Like... what, bats or roaches, or...?”

“No – no. Something - _weird_.”

Gabe opened his mouth to say something then shut it again, considering his options. “Like - _you_ weird, or-”

“No, no, this is - _really_ weird.”

“It’s, um-” Bill muttered something.

“It’s what?”

“I think it’s a ghost,” Bill said very quietly.

Having the devotedly unspiritual Bill Beckett tell him that his apartment was haunted was strangely unsettling. “Bill, you don’t believe in ghosts-”

“I know, I know – I didn’t, but-”

“Bilvy, Bill, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Well, I don’t know what else to call it! I woke up this morning, at, like, three, and there was this –thing – at the end of my bed, which is, by the way, _a lot_ creepier than the movies make it look. And it was-”

“Billy-”

“And it was _staring_ at me! I mean, I think it was staring at me, I’m not entirely sure those things were eyes, but-”

“Bill!”

“There was really something there! I’m not making this up!”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t Carden?” Gabe asked carefully. A creepy figure at the end of Bill’s bed? One couldn’t be too sure.

“He’s not even in the same state! He’s down in LA with Chiz!”

“OK – then, don’t take this the wrong way, but...” Gabe rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Have you been taking your meds?”

Bill gave him a flat-eyed stare. “Yes, Gabe. I have been taking my meds. _For depression_. Not psychosis! I don’t _have_ that!”

“Yeah, but you know how you get when you’re trying to write-”

“Gabe, I think there’s something _dead_ in my apartment!” 

“Where?” Gabe didn’t mean to sound as sceptical as he did.

“There is a _ghost_ here, so, logically, there must be something _dead_ here!” He caught Gabe’s dubious expression. “Somewhere!” he snapped, before Gabe could repeat his question.

“Sweetheart, exactly _nothing_ about this is logical! And could you please put the bat down, it’s starting to make me nervous.”

“Sorry,” Bill said, and stopped swinging it absently, propping it up against his sofa.

Gabe took a deep breath and sat down. “Right. OK – let’s – let’s just sit down and talk this through. _Logically_.”

**

An hour later, Gabe was still trying to steer them onto the course of logic. “So why isn’t it here _now_?” he asked, for the third or fourth time.

Bill was sat on the kitchen table, feet propped on one of the chairs, chewing a hangnail. “I told you, it’s not dark. It never comes out in the day.”

“Wait, you’ve seen it often enough to work out a pattern?”

Bill stared at him. “Gabe, I didn’t ring you because I had a _bad dream_. If it had only happened once, I could just put it down to an overactive imagination and far too much time on my hands. This is like the fifth time I’ve seen it.”

Gabe paused. “Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but – have you talked to someone about this? Someone – professional? Not just... me.”

“We’ve been over this,” Bill actually had the nerve to sound long-suffering. “I’m not having another breakdown.”

“No, no, I’m sure you’re not, but – you know, sometimes it’s helpful to-”

“Fine,” Bill said decisively. “If you don’t believe me, stay here tonight and see if you can see it, and if you can’t see it, I will go to any psychiatrist you like.” Gabe considered it. “I dare you.”

“Oh, for - _alright_ , fine. I’ll stay.” There was, after all, nothing to worry about, and it was probably best for Bill to have someone with him. “But you have to promise me-”

“OK, yes, fine. Come with me.”

He turned away without waiting for a reply, and Gabe could tell that he was really pissed off by the tense line of his back. He followed him meekly into the bedroom, and Bill turned to him, hands on hips, apparently waiting for some kind of reaction.

Gabe glanced around. “Well, um. This is nice?” Bill waited. “I mean, normally we’re in here for totally different reasons.” Bill’s eyebrow crept upwards. “Look, I’m really not sure what you want from me. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“That!” Bill pointed at the wall behind Gabe’s head, and Gabe noticed, for the first time, that his hands were shaking. He turned around to look. There was a single handprint burnt onto the wall and Gabe felt a cold shiver go down his spine. He was starting to think that maybe he’d been premature in promising to stay. Bill was still chewing meditatively on his nail. “They appear kind of randomly. I’m starting to think it depends on the day of the week.”

Gabe swallowed. “And they – only appear in here?”

“Well, no, they just only _stay_ in here.”

“Sweetheart,” Gabe grasped desperately at the fast-disappearing shreds of his sanity, “are you sure it’s not just – not just-”

“‘Not just’ what?!” Bill demanded. “Gabe, there’s a handprint on my wall, it’s really there, you can _see it_ , right?” Gabe nodded dumbly. “I have gone over it again and again to make sure it’s not just – weird soot marks or something wrong with the wallpaper, and it’s not. They disappear, and then I’ll wake up and there’ll be more! If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see them appearing!” Bill broke off, breathing deeply after his outburst.

“Bilvy-”

“It has _fingerprints_!”

“OK! I believe you, OK. I’ll set up the couch-”

“We’re not going to be sleeping,” Bill said, without a breath of innuendo in his voice. “Or if we are, it will be together. Get that look off your face, Gabanti, you’re not funny.” Gabe hastily smoothed the leer off his face. “Better.”

Gabe eyed him. “Hey, look, maybe we should just go back to my place tonight? So you can calm down, give you a chance to get your thoughts together-”

“No! I’m not gonna let you think I’m _crazy_. At least,” he amended fairly, “not without good cause.”

“But we could come back tomorrow night when you’re feeling a bit better and investigate all you want-”

“We’re staying,” Bill said, implacable, and that was that.

**

By dusk, Bill had actually managed to freak Gabe out a little. Under the fluorescent kitchen lights, Bill looked frankly unwell – though in all fairness, Gabe imagined he didn’t look so hot himself. Both of them, however, were outstripped by the _thing_ which appeared by the fridge. Whatever it was, it did not look healthy. 

“Bill, it hasn’t got-”

“Eyes,” Bill said with deceptive calm, “I know.” Hefting the baseball bat, he took step towards the Thing and swung the bat at it with the strength of the terrified – straight through the spirit and into the fridge door. “Get the _fuck_ out of my apartment, you bastard!”

The thing flickered and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the adrenaline pumping through them to show it had ever been there. “So,” Gabe said, gripping the back of the chair with hands that shook, “that’s it?”

“I’m sorry, was it not enough for you?” 

“No, no, that’s – plenty enough. I guess I was just expecting... ectoplasm, moving furniture, shaking walls, flickering lights-”

“You’re giving it ideas,” Bill hissed, putting the baseball bat on the table, within easy reach. “And it really doesn’t need the help.” He pointed at the wall with a remarkably steady hand, and Gabe glanced back at it, then stepped hastily away from it. Handprints like the one in the bedroom were appearing thick and fast across the white paint, with no discernible pattern, and watching them appear and disappear as fast was one of the scariest things Gabe had ever seen. 

It was scarier still when the lights buzzed and flickered out.

“Bill?” Gabe could hear him breathing in the darkness next to him.

“Sorry,” his voice floated out of the gloom. “I didn’t realise how dark it’s gotten.”

In the near darkness, they could still see the handprints appearing on the walls, coming slower now, but with almost deliberate regularity. 

“OK,” Gabe said slowly, then more decisively: “OK, we’re going. I’ve seen enough.” He groped for Bill’s hand and yanked him in the direction of the front door, one hand out in front of him to make sure he didn’t walk into anything, trying not to touch the wall. “You were right, I was wrong, we’ll come back in the morning with specialists or something-”

“Mm, I’m sure craigslist will have a whole page dedicated to paranormal investigators,” Bill muttered. “But, seriously, wait-”

“No, we’re coming back in the morning, when things are less _freaky_!” He reached a hand out to grab the handle when another black handprint burnt itself into the wood of the door in front of him. For a moment, he paused, hand out – and then glared, grabbing the handle and yanking on it. When the door didn’t open, he frowned, and tried twisting the handle the other way. Nothing. The door didn’t so much as budge. “Where are your keys?” He demanded over his shoulder.

“Didn’t lock it,” Bill said, a detached, dreamy quality to his voice. “You don’t need the key from the inside. It just – won’t open after dark.”

“You could,” Gabe said, with admirable restraint, “have mentioned this earlier.”

“I told you, I didn’t notice how dark it was getting,” Bill said, snapping out of it and sounding a little defensive.

“Oh, this is great,” Gabe muttered. “Is this what you’ve been doing every night? Just sitting in here and watching those things appear on the wall?” Bill shrugged, Gabe could tell by the way his hand moved in his. Then he thought of a more pressing problem. “So – this means we’re stuck here?”

“Until daylight, yeah,” Bill nodded, still sounding a little detached.

“Well, shit,” Gabe dragged a hand down his face. “OK, so, we need salt.”

**

When the lights came on ten minutes later, Gabe jumped up from the sofa he’d been huddling on with Bill, and went to rifle through his kitchen cupboards. Bill trailed after him and watched him from the door.

“So – why the hell do we need _salt_?”

“We need to make a circle. One big enough to sit in.”

There was a moment of ominous silence before Bill skewered him with look. “Gabriel, there is a _dead thing_ in my apartment, OK? Now is not the time for your ‘Self-Expression through Condiments’ class!” It was said with jazz hands and acid.

“You really need to watch more TV. What do you do at night when you can’t sleep?!”

“Oh, you know,” Bill said sweetly, “call my mom, read a bit – but recently, I’ve been connecting with the other side of the grave. It’s really easy, because they _stand_ at the end of my _bed_ staring at me with the _holes_ in their _faces_ which were maybe, one time, _eyes_.”

“There’s no need to get sarcastic,” Gabe said, on his dignity. “Anyway, your knowledge of pop culture is for shit.”

“I am pop culture,” Bill said stonily.

“Actually, I think _Pete’s_ pop culture-”

Bill interrupted him with a hysterical little giggle, standing up to pace the kitchen, rubbing his fingers over the dent in the fridge door. “Pete, why didn’t I ring _Pete_?! He’d have an entire brigade of emo ghost-busters in here by now. Instead of _you_ , you’re so easily distracted!”

“Hey, that’s not fair! I’m n-” Gabe broke off, and Bill turned to him.

“See, that’s what I-”

“No, dude. The lights.” They flickered on cue with the same ominous low buzzing as before, then shorted out entirely. Something flickered in the corner of Gabe’s eye, and he edged closer to where he thought Bill was. “Billy, d’you have anything with iron in it?”

“Such as...?” Bill drawled, from his left.

“I don’t know – a-a poker?”

“Oh yeah,” icy sarcasm, “for that fireplace I don’t have.”

“I’m _trying_ to _help_ here.”

“OK, fine – I think I have a cast iron skillet.”

“Where?”

“Second cupboard down from the fridge to the right.”

Gabe felt his way into the cupboard, and grasped the skillet. “Right, OK. Now-”

“Something touched me!” Bill squawked and swung, thankfully unable to get up much momentum in the tiny kitchen. He still connected with Gabe’s side.

“Ow,” Gabe said pointedly. “That was me.”

“Sorry, Gabanti,” Bill said, contrite, and rested a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. And then warm hands, long-fingered and unmistakeably Bill’s, touched his face. Gabe went cold. “Are you OK?”

“There – are hands. Touching me.”

“Yeah, you’re OK, that’s me-”

“No...” Gabe was having difficulty getting the words out. “There are _three_ hands touching me.” On cue, an icy chill fell over the kitchen, and Gabe’s head turned to the side almost of its own volition – and was met with the sight of dead, decaying flesh. 

Gabe made a sound not usually heard in the natural world. The thing was _glowing_ with a cold, eerie light. “Kill it!” he said in a tuneful soprano, and swung with the skillet. Bill was frozen, brandishing the baseball bat like a lightsaber, but at the first touch of the skillet, the spirit disappeared into a few puffs of smoke. The lights came back on, and Gabe collapsed against the cabinets, rubbing his side and wiping cold sweat off his forehead. “Thanks for that, you’re great in a crisis, aren’t you?!”

“I was scared I was gonna hit _you_! Again,” he added as an afterthought, putting the bat down on the counter.

“Well, next time, just – just – I don’t know. Do something.”

Bill slumped against the counter and forebore to snap back at him. There was a momentary pause, then: “I think I have water-softening salt in one of these boxes.”

Gabe eyed the huge pile of cardboard boxes against the far wall of the sitting room, evidence of Bill’s recent move to New York, and sighed. “Right. Let’s – get looking.”

**

“Billy, darling, we can’t _live_ in a salt circle.”

“Yes, we can – it’s safe in here, there’s food, water, and we can lay a salt corridor to the bathroom.”

“OK, let me rephrase – I _won’t_ live in a salt-circle. We don’t even know if it’ll work! The CW isn’t exactly a known authority on all things paranormal.”

“Why you gotta kill the fun, Gabe?” The note of hysteria was back in Bill’s voice. “It’s just like camping!”

“Well, it’s not,” Gabe pointed out.

“I know,” Bill took a couple of deep breaths. “I know, OK? I feel like a squatter in my own front room.” He stood and paced futilely round the confines of the circle. “Why now!? What does it _want_!?”

“Dunno, dude.”

Bill paced a little harder, kicking up little flurries of salt. “Why can’t it just leave me alone!?”

“I don’t – sweetheart, you’re damaging the circle, and we don’t have any more salt.”

“Why is it picking on me!?”

“Why don’t you come and sit down where it’s safe? Away from the edge of the circle?”

“Fine,” Bill stopped and glared at him, then stomped over and plopped himself down in Gabe’s lap. “Happy now?”

Gabe slung his arms around Bill’s waist and hugged him a little. “Dude, you’re shaking.”

“No, really? Dead stalkers will do that to a guy.” He wrapped his arms around Gabe’s neck and hugged back, holding the position for a long moment before pulling back.

Gabe managed a quick smile. “Yeah, about that... You know, to start with, I thought you’d just lost a few more of your marbles than you could afford-”

“Whisper me more sweet nothings.”

“-But now, I’d say I’m pretty convinced.”

Bill offered him a flat-eyed glance. “It always feels so special when you validate my delusions.”

“OK, now you’re just being bitchy.” It was a testament of how much the situation was getting to Gabe that he actually called Bill on it. He was cold, tired, hungry, had a mouthful of Bill’s hair, and he was actually _waiting_ , like a sitting duck, for a dead guy to reappear.

“I am never bitchy!”

“Lies, Billiam. Lies.” Gabe spat out the hair and rested his head on Bill’s shoulder, letting it go for the moment.

“Why is this happening to me?!”

“Oh, here we go.”

“No, seriously – why is it happening to me?! Why not Mrs. Cunningham down the hall? She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met! She could cope with a creature of hell, I think she _is_ one, it’ll be just like a family reunion for her!”

“Bill, you’re getting worked up-”

“I know I am! This is not how I planned to spend my evenings after moving in here! I’m young, I’m in my prime, I could be out having _sex_! With a different person every night if I wanted to.”

“Thought you already did that,” Gabe said, with a trace of bitterness. “I’m Wednesday.”

Bill unbent enough to snuggle a little. “Friday too,” he offered awkwardly, and Gabe hugged him closer, recognising that it had cost Bill something to say even that much aloud. It looked like it was going to be a nice moment – which was presumably why the spirit chose it to reappear.

Bill’s fingers closed around Gabe’s arms in a vice-like grip. Gabe decided to concentrate on breathing, but he could feel Bill ratcheting up the tension from the way he was all-but vibrating in his lap. 

“Gabe, it’s staring at me,” Bill muttered into his ear, and Gabe petted awkwardly at his hip.

“It’s staring at both of us,” he muttered back. “But It’s OK. It can’t get in. I mean. I really _hope_ it can’t get in.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.” Bill muttered back “Leave me alone!” He snapped at the ghost, after engaging in a few moment’s staring competition with it. “Why the _fuck_ won’t you leave me alone!?”

Gabe might have been overstating the case, but he thought the thing looked strangely – pensive. But obviously, it said nothing and disappeared. Gabe heaved a sigh of relief, only to realise that Bill was staring fixedly over his shoulder. “It’s – behind me, isn’t it,” he said flatly.

“Yeah,” Bill breathed, looping an arm around Gabe’s neck. “You stay the fuck away from him!” he addressed the spirit viciously.

“We’re in the circle, it’s OK,” Gabe chanted quietly under his breath. “It can’t get us in here, we’re in the circle, we’re in the circle-”

“It’s still staring at me.”

“Us, it’s staring at _us_ , and it can’t get in,” Gabe said, and Bill hid his face in Gabe’s neck. 

“I hate this, I hate it, I _hate_ it,” he muttered, and Gabe rubbed a hand down his back. 

“Can’t get in,” he repeated, and when Bill glanced back up again, the spirit was gone.

**

 

“How do you _know_ about this stuff?” It was two in the morning, and they were still in the salt circle, with a long while to go before dawn. Bill was half-curled into Gabe's lap, legs bent awkwardly under him.

"What stuff?" he asked sleepily. Though Gabe was one of life's die-hard insomniacs, he was exhausted from a combination of terror and fast-fading adrenaline, and Bill's varnished pinewood floor was becoming increasingly comfortable. Only the knowledge that Bill would probably challenge the ghost to a duel while Gabe was asleep kept him awake.

"You know. The salt. And when it -" Bill shuddered before twisting around to settle his head more comfortably on Gabe's shoulder, "- appeared in the kitchen, you knew what to do. Have you been on some kind of Ghostbusting course and you just never told me?"

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Me and Dan Ackroyd, we're like that,” he held up his crossed fingers. “No. I, er. Watch _Supernatural_ when I can’t sleep."

"Super-what?"

"Natural,” Gabe said, suppressing a yawn. “It's a show about ghost-hunting. They show repeats at ass o'clock in the morning, and, y’know, it's something to do."

"Hang on," Bill sounded suspicious. "Is that the show with the brothers and the manpain and all the single perfect tears of-?"

"Yes," Gabe said quickly. He could feel himself drifting off and forced his eyes open.

"Far be it from me to judge your viewing choices in any way, but is that seriously all you can find to watch at two am?" It sounded suspiciously as though Bill was grinning.

Gabe poked him. "Are you really complaining?"

"No," Bill conceded with a sigh. "But - y'know, I thought better of you."

Gabe knew it was a joke, but he was tired and Bill's pinewood floor was digging into his coccyx and he was on edge waiting for a freaking _ghost_ to appear. "Yeah, well, it’s been weirdly reliable, so forgive me if I'm not angsting about not watching something more high-brow," he snapped.

Bill shifted on his lap so he could face him. "Hey, where did that come from?" he asked mildly, surprisingly so given his earlier, on-edge behaviour.

Gabe let his arms fall from around Bill's waist and brought a hand up to drag it over his face. He would have killed for some coffee. "Sorry," he said tiredly. "I'm just... fucking exhausted, y'know, man? And this - thing, whatever it is, is lurking round here somewhere, and I’m waiting for it.”

"Yeah," Bill nodded. "I, er. I don't think I ever thanked you for coming round, by the way."

Gabe dredged up a smile from somewhere. "Every time, baby. Next time your apartment has some weird ghost infestation, I wanna be first on your list to get trapped in it with you. And beaten by you. And-"

"OK, I get it! And... you normally are," Bill added in a rare burst of romanticism. "Especially now I know you're the one with all the ghostbuster knowledge..." Gabe chuckled, earlier tension soothed back a little, and let Bill squirm around in his lap to kiss him. "We're gonna be OK," Bill promised, pulling back for a second, before pressing another quick, firm kiss to Gabe's mouth. "If I have to beat that motherfucker into a pulp myself." 

Gabe pulled back to reply, and his eyes widened, then darted to the edge of the salt-circle - where Bill's flailing around had broken the line of salt. "Feel free to get right onto that," he said weakly.

Bill frowned at him, puzzled, before turning to follow his line of vision. 

The spirit had reappeared once again. But this time it was inside the circle; Gabe couldn’t say it was a particularly welcome change. Bill had frozen completely and was staring up at the thing with an expression not a million miles away from terror. Somehow channelling the terror into anger, Bill was on his feet before Gabe had time to draw an unnaturally icy breath.

“Go away!” he yelled, waving his arms wildly as though he were trying to frighten off the pigeons that came too close in the park. “Leave me alone!” The spirit, less than a foot away, appeared to watch him thoughtfully. 

Gabe shuddered. Could it think? Or was it now just a mass of ectoplasm, devoid of any emotion or empathy? Gabe shook his head to clear it, focusing instead on the standoff occurring under his nose. 

“Just go away!” Bill yelled again. Surreally, Gabe heard the neighbours banging on the wall. “I don’t – want you here! Fucking –“

In less than a heartbeat, the spirit vanished and reappeared mere inches from Gabe, who suddenly found himself distracted from Bill’s monologue. 

It stared at him for what felt like a short eternity, then reached a hand down to him, and Gabe, stuck in some weird, trance-like state, thought numbly that there might be something like entreaty in its eyes. And then Bill made an inhuman sound of rageterrorfrustration and _threw_ himself at it.

It spun round, a strangely human move, and flung up its hands - or what had been its hands, the fingers were mangled and lumpy and just _not right_ \- and Bill went flying across the room, and smacked into the wall, his head ricocheting into it with a painful thud. 

Gabe was on his feet in seconds, already hastening towards him; Bill was lying sprawled on the floor, half propped up against the wall, clearly stunned. 

Glancing back at the spirit, carefully positioned between it and Bill, Gabe watched as it actually seemed to dither before flickering out. When Gabe let out a sigh of relief, his breath no longer misted in the air.

"Hey, baby," he said very quietly to Bill, who was only just starting to regain a little lucidity, blinking exaggeratedly and looking around for the spirit. "Let me have a look, OK?" He felt the back of Bill's head with gentle fingertips and relaxed a little when they came away clean, no sign of any blood. "Yeah, it gave you a pretty good knock, huh?" he said, and helped Bill to his feet, where he swayed ominously. "C'mon, we should - the salt circle's useless, we're just gonna have to tough it out, and we might as well do it in comfort."

"Huh?" Bill said dazedly.

"Your room, Bilvy," Gabe told him, helping him over to the couch. “We'll go there. Have you got any ice?"

Bill blinked again, but nodded very slowly. "Um, yes? I think? It'll - be in the - freezer."

"Right. I'm going to grab that, and then you're going to tell me how many fingers I'm holding up and who's the President and if you answer them right we're gonna go and lie down, OK?"

Bill was silent for so long that Gabe had already started towards his kitchenette before he spoke up. "And what if I... don't answer right?"

"Then I will get an ambulance here come hell or high water or evil spirits," Gabe assured him, rooting around in the freezer to try and find ice. "OK? I promise."

Bill seemed to consider this and then nodded. 

"Okay," Gabe said, as much to reassure himself as Bill. He groped for the ice tray and fished it out of the freezer, wincing as icy water ran down his sleeve. "Hey, d'you have anything I can put these in?" 

Bill nodded. "Cupboards under the microwave." He'd slumped over and was cradling the back of his head. When nothing more was forthcoming, Gabe sighed and started pulling open cupboard doors. "This is so stupid. I helped you move in and I still have no idea where anything - Bill!" Bill's head was starting to droop a little onto his chest. "Bilvy, don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep, okay? You might have concussion and then Pete will kill me."

Bill murmured something and his eyes slid shut. Dumping the ice on the counter (where it cracked and skittered all over the damn shop), Gabe grabbed Bill's shoulders and shook him a little. "Bill!"

"Mmph," Bill muttered something cross and opened his eyes properly. "'m awake."

"Stay that way," Gabe said shortly, turning back to the counter and collecting the scattered ice from behind the coffee machine and the mug-tree. He piled the cubes into the centre of a dish-cloth and tied a knot in it before pressing it to the back of Bill's head. Bill jerked and sat up properly.

"Cold?" Gabe grinned at him. Bill glared back and pushed Gabe's hand away, holding the makeshift ice-pack to his head. Gabe slid an arm around his shoulders and hauled him unsteadily to his feet. "Bedroom?"

"You know where it is," Bill said thickly. Gabe started to tow him in the right direction. It was slow-going. Bill didn't seem to want to move his feet more than a few inches at a time, Gabe was trying his hardest to keep him upright and get to their destination unscathed *and* simultaneously keep an eye out just in case the spirit came back to finish what it started.

He shook his head. "Man, this is fucked up," he said aloud, and Bill giggled, clinging to him and stumbling a little.

"You're telling me," he mumbled, adding "Glad you're here." Gabe tightened his grip on Bill and released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"So am I. Between you and the ghost, there wouldn't have been an apartment block here by tomorrow." They'd reached the bedroom. Carefully, Gabe tumbled Bill onto the bed and sat down beside him. "No sleeping."

Bill ignored him and fixed him with a slightly cross-eyed gimlet stare. “You’re a very long way away,” he told him, flailing in a vaguely beckoning manner.

Gabe shut the door – though he had no idea what use that would be – and headed over to the bed, arranging himself around Bill, who instantly curled into him, head on shoulder. Gabe took the fast-melting, impromptu ice pack from him. “Gimme that,” he said, holding it gently to the back of Bill’s head.

“You know you’re not just my Wednesday guy, right?” Bill muttered into Gabe’s shirt, one hand coming up to cup Gabe’s face, pulling back when Gabe flinched away from his cold fingers.

“I know,” Gabe said, trying to make a joke of it. “I’m Friday, too, right?”

“No, no,” Bill said, sounding sleepy. “You’re everyday. Honestly.”

“Wow, you really hit your head hard,” Gabe muttered dryly. 

“I mean it,” Bill said drowsily, and Gabe frowned.

“Hey, hey – wake up!” Bill didn’t so much as twitch, and Gabe tried a new approach. “Y’know, Bilvy, I’m not so sure this ghost of yours-”

“Not mine,” Bill muttered against his shoulder.

“-is all that malevolent.”

Bill rolled his head back to look Gabe in the eye. “Head injury,” he said flatly.

“Well, before, you said it just appeared and stood at the end of your bed, right? Think of all the times it _could_ have killed you or hurt you, or-”

“Thank you,” Bill interrupted, letting his head roll forward, words coming a little slower than normal. “Hadn’t thought about that before.”

“Sarcasm ages the skin, baby,” Gabe told him. “My point is – I don’t think it’s trying to hurt you. I don’t know what it _is_ trying to do – but I don’t think it’s evil, or whatever.”

“Could be toying with me,” Bill said after a moment’s pause.

Gabe went to reply, but stopped as he caught sight of a handprint blistering into the wall opposite the bed. “I can see how that would get creepy,” he breathed to himself.

“Wha’?” Bill murmured.

“Nothing, Bilvy,” he said quietly, staring as the print darkened into black. He had no idea if that was a sign, and if it _was_ a sign, what it was a sign of. Was the spirit agreeing with him? Gabe was pretty sure that this had never come up in the episodes of Supernatural that he’d seen. Turned out, dealing with a ghost in real life was a lot different to watching them on your TV at two in the morning. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flicker, but when he turned his head, there was nothing. He could feel his heart beating in his throat, and almost wished he hadn’t turned the main light on when they came into the room; if it was dark, he wouldn’t have been able to see anything – and certainly not the next handprint burning itself into the wall opposite him. But turning the light off would have meant leaving the bed and leaving Bill, neither of which he was really keen to do. “Why are you here?” he asked the empty air. “And what do you _want_?”

“S’my house,” Bill murmured, and Gabe smiled.

“Not you,” he said. “How’s your head, anyway?”

“Been better, had worse,” he said, trying to lever himself up, but let himself flop back down onto Gabe seconds later. “Huh, maybe later,” he said, conceding defeat with unaccustomed grace, but his speech wasn’t as laboured as before and his face wasn’t as pale, and Gabe was grateful for small mercies.

“Feeling any better?” he asked.

“Mmm,” Bill said laconically, rolling over to grab some Tylenol from the bedside table. “Any new developments?”

“Nope,” Gabe said breezily, lying through his teeth, watching a third and then a fourth handprint appear in quick succession. 

“Gabanti, when you lie, your voice sounds different,” Bill said, voice sounding a little lazy. "What's it doing? Is it there?" He went to sit up, and Gabe stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, not too fast," he cautioned. "I'm not cleaning up your vomit if you barf."

"Charming," Bill said, sandpaper-dry. "I'm not going to barf. What's it doing?"

"There are handprints," Gabe said. "They just - they appear really fast."

"How many?" Bill said sharply.

"Four so far," Gabe told him. "I didn't - I mean, Bill, this is fucking - seriously. The fuck?"

"Believe me now, do you?" Bill sounded remarkably unbothered, and he seemed content to lie against Gabe without moving. Gabe threaded a hand into his hair, deeply relieved that Bill was mostly OK (physically at least), and that the bump to his head didn't seem to have done any serious damage. 

"To be honest, the spirit-thing that appeared in your kitchen was a bit of a giveaway," he said, keeping his voice as light as possible.

Bill chuckled and shifted a little next to him. "You're taking up half the bed,” he grumbled and shoved at Gabe's side. Gabe obligingly wriggled closer to his side of the bed and stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows of new handprints appear on the walls and ceiling, showing up all too clearly under Bill’s over-bright lightbulbs. 

Gabe obligingly wriggled closer to his side of the bed and stared at the ceiling, watching the new handprints skitter across the white paint. One appeared just above his head, and he shuddered, turning his head away from it to look at Bill instead. Bill in profile, as he was also staring at the ceiling, features oddly relaxed for someone who'd been flung with considerable force by something that, by rights, should not exist. Gabe cleared his throat.

"Hey, man?" Bill made a quiet noise of assent. "Any time you want to say 'I told you so', go ahead. I mean it. This has been..." he trailed off, unable to think of an adjective that could suitably convey screaming, flailing and a lot of salt. Bill grinned. “This is a one-time opportunity, ok?" Gabe added quickly. "You get to say it once and then we _never mention it again_."

"No problem, trust me," Bill sighed, frowning as a burst of handprints appeared on the door. "The sooner I can put this entire debacle down to the stress of writing the new album, the better."

"Hmmm." 

They lay in silence for a while, watching as handprints continued to smatter the walls, fading and appearing a little quicker than before.

The movement was almost hypnotic, and Gabe found himself drifting off again, lulled further by Bill's warmth next to him. The bed was far comfier than the sitting room floor. He was almost asleep when he felt Bill freeze and tensed in response. "S'up?" he asked blearily, opening his eyes. Bill had rolled over to face him.

"Does it seem... cold in here?" Bill asked, tight-lipped, and it was as though a bucket of icy water had been tipped down Gabe's spine.

Gabe didn't sit up until he saw the air at the end of the bed flicker weirdly, and realised that lying supine was only going to make the pair of them hugely vulnerable to whatever the spirit might take it into its - head? - to do. Bill moved with him, with a slight wince, and Gabe wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him closer.

"S'OK," he said, though he really wasn't sure it was. "We'll be fine."

"Last time I met this thing outside the salt-circle-thing, it threw me into a wall," Bill said, so tense he was practically vibrating. "'Fine' might be pushing it."

"But all the times before that, it did nothing to you," Gabe pointed out, sounding far more hopeful than he was. "I'm - I have no idea what's going on here, but I don't know about this thing, Bilvy, I think it might not be as black-"

"As the handprints it's leaving on my wall?"

"Whatever metaphor you like," Gabe agreed distractedly.

The spirit flickered into sight at the end of the bed, and though it didn't really have eyes, Gabe was sure it was staring at them. He tightened his arm around Bill just in case, and Bill felt for his hand, apparently instinctively.

"We're OK," Gabe reminded them both. "We're just fine."

Bill wasn't listening. "What do you _want_ from us?" he asked it, none of his earlier anger in his voice. He just sounded plaintive now. "Why won't you leave us alone?"

"It's not going to-" Gabe started, but cut himself off with a choked breath when the thing flickered then reappeared almost instantly.

Next to him, Bill released a shaky breath. "Why won't you leave us alone?" he repeated, more bewildered than upset. The spirit continued to stare at them, unmoving, from the end of the bed. On the walls around the door, the handprints came thick and fast, until it was practically singed black. Gabe swallowed. 

"I don't think it wants us to leave," he whispered, and instantly regretted it as he felt a wave of panic wash over him. Bill gripped his hand. 

“We knew that already,” he murmured, and Gabe realised that Bill was ineptly trying to be reassuring.

The spirit flickered minutely and then vanished. It was almost an anticlimax. Gabe sighed and sat up.

"Man, the afterlife must be dull," he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. His skin felt stretched and sallow from lack of sleep. "If that thing's idea of fun is scaring the shit out of the living, then count me out."

He shook himself a little, eyeing the still-blackened door warily, and waited for Bill to relax. But the minutes passed and Bill's breathing was still shallow and Gabe could feel his pulse pounding in his wrist. 

"Dude," he poked Bill in the ribs. "Dude, it's gone. You can start breathing again."

Bill sat up, slowly, frowning. "Something doesn't feel right," he said. "I don't think..." He trailed off. Gabe rubbed his back. 

"S'okay."

"No," Bill stared frustratedly at the door. "Something's weird. There's this - feeling. I've had it before."

"Yeah?" Gabe heard himself asking, totally against his better judgment.

Bill continued to stare at the door. "It's still here."

Something twisted in the air to Gabe's right, and with some strange serendipity, he turned his head.  
The spirit was barely inches away from him.

He would have leapt backwards had it been possible. As it was, he jumped, his skin prickling with fear, and landed almost in Bill's lap. Bill wrapped his arms around Gabe and glared at the spirit. 

"Stay away from him," he said. Gabe had never heard that tone in Bill's voice before, and hoped never to again, a strange, uncomfortable mix of protectiveness and terror. "You - just stay away from him, OK?!"

The spirit didn't move, but once again Gabe got the definite impression it was staring at them. The air felt strangely heavy, weighted down by the silence which was broken only by his own heartbeat, hammering in his ears. He could tell he was breathing in harsh pants, and almost expected to see his breath misting in the air. 

For a long moment, they stared at the spirit, and it seemed to be staring back, then, very slowly, it reached out a hand to them. Gabe recoiled instinctively, and could feel Bill getting ready to move - to do what, he had no idea, possibly to throw himself in front of Gabe, or even at the spirit again, though that hadn't ended so well last time.

"What is it?" he asked the spirit helplessly, mostly to distract Bill, but the thing actually cocked its head at him, weirdly considering. "What do you want?"

There was, of course, no answer.

Gabe felt the air around the spirit move and instinctively held his breath as the thing made to close the last spare inches between them. Before Gabe could yell, move or even drag air into his lungs, Bill had lunged towards the spirit, planting an elbow in Gabe's stomach at the same time. Gabe grabbed him before he could hurl himself off the bed entirely.

"Listen," he hissed, tilting his head back to glare at the spirit. "I don't know what the fuck you want or why you're here. But you stay the fuck away from him, okay? He's mine. You can't have him." 

Gabe stared at the altercation occurring somewhere around his midriff. Bill was staring determinedly at the spirit. The spirit stared just as implacably back.

"You can't have him," Bill repeated, his voice shaking a little. The spirit, apparently tired of scrutiny, vanished again with a sound akin to radio static. Bill slumped to rest his head on Gabe's stomach. "It's not gone, you know that, right?" he said, muffled by Gabe's shirt. Gabe nodded. He could feel the wrongness in the room; it was like a note out-of-tune, he thought and then shook his head. He was spending far too much time with Bill. Grabbing the offender by the arms, Gabe hauled him up to sprawl next to him.

"Thanks for springing to my defence," he said, curling his arms around Bill's waist. "'He's mine'? Oh, Bilvy, you know I love it when you go all strong and manly and possessive."

Bill snorted. "Shut up, I was worried, OK? I admit I may have overreacted just a little, but it’s a possibly evil ghost! Who’s to say it wasn’t going to take you away and perform some really hideous experiments on you. Who knows what would happen to Cobra if you came back all mangled and seeing dead people?"

Gabe smiled and dropped his chin on Bill's head. "You looooove me," he crooned. "You love me, Billy. Don't even deny it."

Bill jerked his head back, but nowhere near as sharply as he would have done had he been really irritated. "Never said I didn't," he muttered gruffly. Finally, he let his head tip back against Gabe's shoulder. "God, I hate this," he sighed.

"I know," Gabe nodded, letting him rest against him for a second before dropping his head into the crook of Bill's neck, and pressing a quick kiss against the skin of his throat. 

Bill made a tiny sound of protest. "Hey, not the time!"

"Why not?" Gabe countered.

"Possibly evil undead spirit, Gabe!" Bill pointed out, straightening immediately.

"I know that," Gabe said patiently. "But you're tense, and I'm tense, and we could really use something to take our minds off it."

"That is without a doubt the worst excuse you have ever used to get into my pants _ever_ ," Bill said dryly, and Gabe laughed a little.

"See, we're totally both more relaxed now. Sex, the great healer!"

"That's _time_ ," Bill said, but didn't pull back when Gabe leant in to kiss him.

"Whatever," Gabe said, pulling back after just a second. "Time, sex, no big difference."

"I think most people would beg to differ," Bill said, but he was smiling, so Gabe was totally counting it as a win. The off-note was still hanging in the air, and the spirit hadn't _gone_ , but it couldn't take this away from them if it wanted to, and Gabe wasn't going to let it win here, too. 

"Don't care about most people," he said, "I pretty much only care about you." Which definitely ranked up in the top-ten most ridiculous and sappy things he had ever said, so he distracted Bill by kissing him firmly, propped up against the pillows just over him, so Bill had to lean up a little into the kiss, which he did willingly.

They kissed for a while, Bill anchoring himself with a hand fisted in Gabe's shirt. It wasn't enough to cancel out the spirit's presence entirely - Bill was still shaking a little and Gabe could feel his own heart pounding - but it was certainly a welcome distraction. Gabe hooked his thumbs through the belt loops on Bill's ridiculous, painted-on jeans and hauled him closer. Bill broke away with a sound of protest. 

"Crick in my neck," he explained when Gabe raised his eyebrows, and threw a leg over Gabe's hips to sit on his stomach. "Better," he grinned and slid and hand round the back of Gabe's neck to haul him in for another kiss. Gabe made a wordless sound of approval and settled down for some serious making-out.

Time suspended for a little while as Gabe tried very hard to concentrate on Bill in his lap rather than the ghost lurking in a dark corner. The room was still icy and he could feel the goosebumps on his arms. "Would it kill it to turn up the heat a little?" he muttered into Bill's mouth, curling in on himself a little to combat the cold. Bill giggled and pulled away from Gabe's mouth to bite at his ear.

"But that's what I'm here for," he murmured, and Gabe stifled a snort.

"Dude. I think that's the cheesiest thing you've said in, oh, ten minutes." Bill was laughing into his shoulder and Gabe relaxed minutely.

"I'm scared shitless," Bill said reproachfully, curling his fingers into Gabe's hair and pouting at him. "I can't be held responsible for all the crap I come out with, okay?"

Gabe grinned. "Is that, like, all the time or just -" he yelped as Bill yanked on his hair, pulling him back in for a kiss. 

"No-one likes a smartass, Gabanti."

"Apparently, you do." Bill humphed and kissed him again.

A few minutes later, Bill broke away, a frown creased between his eyes. "Can you feel that?" he asked, looking around the room.

Gabe paused. The sour note in the air had ebbed to whisper. "Yeah," he said. "You think it's gone?"

Bill pulled a face. "Wouldn't go that far. It's still here, just..."

"It doesn't hate us as much as it did ten minutes ago?" Gabe suggested. He'd meant to be a joke, but Bill was considering it as though it was plausible.

"Free porn," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe that's the answer. Ghost needs to get laid. It makes sense; it watched me jerk off the other night."

Gabe stared at him. "What."

"Yeah. I couldn't see it, but it was there." Bill sighed and disentangled himself from Gabe to lie next to him. "Nothing to put you off your stroke like a dead guy watching you."

Gabe grimaced. "I thought this evening was creepy, but that's a bit -"

"Yeah. I'm all for voyeurism, but when the voyeur's invisible? That's just bad manners, y'know?"

Gabe shuddered a little. "Yeah, that's - wow, fucking weird."

"I know," Bill said quietly. "I - it's better with you here. I, um. Thanks, I guess. For that."

Gabe glanced down at him. "Hey, any time you're being haunted by an impossible spirit, I'm your guy, Bilvy. You know that."

Bill snorted. "Do now, I guess."

Gabe kissed him again by way of response, but glanced up sharply when something flickered in the corner of his eye. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he muttered. Bill instantly tensed under him, craning his head round to follow Gabe's stare. "Hey, no, it's not back," Gabe said quickly. "But I'm pretty sure it's trying to be."

Bill relaxed a little. "Yeah," he agreed and sighed. "Sometime when I'm - unhaunted, we should do this again. Just - you should come round, we should spend fucking hours making out, and not worrying about a ghost that's going to try and, I don't know, _kill_ us at any moment."

"You had me at 'unhaunted'," Gabe told him seriously, but lost his composure when Bill treated him to a truly epic bitchface. "Hey, no, I'm sorry. We totally should. When is making out not awesome?" Bill was still giving him the bitchface, and Gabe gave in to sentimentality for just a moment. "Especially when it's making out with you," he said. "But if that turns up in a hallmark gift card that gets passed around Warped Tour this year, I will deny all knowledge of it."

Bill smiled, sudden and sweet, and Gabe's heart sped up for reasons which had absolutely nothing to do with any ghost. "Would I do that to you, Gabanti?"

"You totally-" Another flicker in the corner of his eye, and he whipped his head round.   
This time, the spirit had made itself pseudo-corporeal again, and was standing at the end of the bed, still watching them. It looked weirdly diminished, less threatening than before, and Gabe, who had instinctively tightened his arms around Bill, relaxed a little. "This ain't a free show, buddy," he said, forcing himself to look it in the face. "I'm not ready to go public yet." 

He could feel Bill tensing, getting ready for another charge, but spirit stayed in its corner, growing paler by the second. If anything, Gabe would have said it looked wistful. He sat up, frowning as slowly it evaporated, leaving only a trail of handprints in its wake. The fuck?

"Well," Gabe said aloud. "That was weird."

Bill made a questioning noise and sat up. "Hey, it's gone," he blew out a breath and the tension went out of his shoulders. "Thank fucking God."

"Can you tell?" Gabe asked, half expecting the spirit to jump out at them at any minute. The handprints were still blistered into the wall. Bill nodded, stretching like a cat before curling into Gabe's side.

"It feels lighter in here," he said, shrugging. It didn't make sense, but Gabe understood. The air didn't feel as heavy on his skin.

"Is it gonna come back or can we risk a couple hours' sleep?" he asked. Bill jerked a head towards the window.

"It's getting light out there - it doesn't normally come after dawn." He hauled himself off the bed and paused, wincing. "Motherfuck, my head hurts."

"You okay?" Gabe looked at him suspiciously. He wasn't above bundling Bill into the car and to the ER, no matter what he said about 'feeling fine'. Provided that the door actually opened. Bill nodded, making his way to the door and flicking off the light. The room dimmed to a pearly-grey from the light outside. 

"I'll survive." Bill clambered back onto the bed and yanked back the duvet. "C'mon," he ordered. "Sleep."

Gabe rolled his eyes, pulling back the covers and climbing in. "After tonight? Yeah, that'll be a doozy."

"Whatever," Bill said affectionately, curling into Gabe and wrapping his arm round him. " _I'm_ exhausted, I don't know about you. Nothing's going to stop me sleeping."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Gabe asked, but it was a token protest. The world air was lighter and less heavy, and the tension which had been keeping him awake all night was starting to dissipate. "If you die here, you better not haunt this place too."

"I'm not going to die," Bill said, already starting to sound sleepy. "Don't be stupid."

"'M never stupid," Gabe responded, but the warmth of the bed and the relief of having made it through the night - it was getting lighter by the second - was getting to him, and he was asleep before he even realised.

**

When he woke, it was bright and almost-sunny outside, the light streaming through the window and its undrawn blind. In the daylight, the room looked different - normal, unthreatening. Wood floors, white walls, all minimalist and shit like Bill liked it - though the handprints were still on the wall. Gabe couldn't look at them without getting a shiver down his spine, so he glanced across at Bill, still asleep next to him.

It was going to be a good day, he decided. He'd get Bill to pack, they'd see if the door was open - and if it wasn't, they'd go out the fucking fire escape, or _something_ , because Gabe, for one, wasn't spending another night in this place and he certainly wasn't letting Bill brave it out alone - and they'd leave it behind them. And leave the ghost-hunting to the experts. Idly, as Bill stirred next to him, he wondered whether it was possible to phone Sam and Dean off Supernatural, and remembered why he hated sleeping in his clothes when he rolled over to watch Bill waking up. (Which sounded, he had to admit, a little creepier than even he was comfortable with.)

"Hey," he said as Bill blinked awake. "You're alive."

"Told you I would be," he returned, voice thick with sleep. "Sleep well?"

"Weirdly, yes, I really did. And, just so you know, we're leaving."

"Right this minute?" Bill, damn him, looked amused. 

"Obviously not, smart-ass," Gabe said. "Today. I'm not spending another night here, OK?"

"I can understand that," Bill agreed. "But, what the hell am I going to do about my apartment?"

Gabe considered this for a moment, staring at the wall opposite the bed with sightless eyes before he actually realised what he was seeing. "Do the handprints always stick around?" he asked, apropos of apparently nothing. Bill made a confused noise, and it was a couple of moments before he answered.

"Um, well. The ones in here do, sometimes?" he said slowly. "Why?"

"Because the only ones that have..." Gabe said, equally slowly, "are the ones on that wall there."

Next to him, he felt Bill shiver. "What the-"

"OK, don't laugh at me, alright," Gabe said, a little hurriedly, "but in the TV show I told you about, they salt and burn the body to get rid of the spirit."

"So what?"

"What if its - its body is in the wall there?"

Bill looked utterly revolted. "Are you _serious_!?

Gabe held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. It was just a thought. I mean, c'mon. Isn't that the thing with ghosts? They want to find peace or something like that?"

He could practically feel the scepticism rolling off Bill in waves. "And you think that the way this thing is going to 'find peace' is if we take a flamethrower to it?"

Put that way... "Yes."

"Which would, in turn, involve essentially destroying my house?"

"Yes."

"And if it's not there, we will have destroyed my house for absolutely no reason?"

Gabe sighed. "Dude. I'm not exactly an authority on this. All I know is that you don't want it creeping you out any more. Logically, getting rid of the body looks like the first step."

"'The first step'?" Bill yelped, sitting up to stare at him incredulously. " _Knocking down my bedroom wall_ is the first step?

Gabe shrugged and slid off the bed, staring at the pattern of handprints on the wall. "If you can think of anything better, go ahead."

"I was thinking of calling police before I have to lay out huge sums of money to rebuild my apartment," Bill stood up and joined him. 

“Just one wall!”

Bill didn’t deign to answer, and there was a moment of silent contemplation before Gabe felt his stomach rumble loudly. 

"Hungry?" Bill asked, lips quirking upward. 

"Starving. You got anything to eat or did you forget to go shopping again?"

Bill gave him a patient look and vanished through the door. Gabe looked at the handprints a couple of seconds longer, and then followed him into the kitchen.

"I'll make it," he announced. Bill glared at him.

"It's my kitchen."

"I've seen your skills with a toaster. Just make the coffee and try not to demolish the building."

"I'm not the one who wants to demolish my apartment," Bill said, just a little tartly. "Fine, you do it. There're bagels on the side and some stuff in the fridge if you wanna-"

"I'll sort it out, sweetness," Gabe said, saccharine to offset Bill's sourness. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

"One day, I'm going to murder you with a teaspoon," Bill muttered and Gabe snorted as he sliced into the bagels. 

"Rubbish. 'I'm yours', remember? You're not going to kill me after you made such an effort to make sure the nasty spirit didn't get me."

"Big mistake," Bill said, but he was smiling, just a little. "Huge. Clearly."

Gabe leant over and kissed his cheek as obnoxiously as he could. "Uhuh, sure, baby." Bill shoved him off, but smiled wider, and Gabe went back to cutting up the bagels, humming a little as he did so.

**

"So," Gabe said, watching Bill pick at the last of his scrambled egg. "I had a thought?"

"Hmm?" Bill quirked his eyebrows at him and shovelled the last forkful into his mouth. "Wha's'it?"

Gabe grinned. "Charming. No, I was thinking. You can't stay here if that thing is still around."

"Dunno. Might go and see some family if I can't find a floor to crash on. I'm not letting that thing stay here long. Even if I _do_ have to call in that irritating fucker Bill Murray and his team."

"You could move in with me!" It was said very quickly through a mouthful of coffee, and Gabe winced. That wasn't how he'd planned the invitation originally.

Bill shook his head. "It's kind of you, man, really. But having made you sleep in my House of Horror for one night, I'm not going to inconvenience you any more today."

"I'm serious," Gabe said, a little exasperated, because 'inconvenience', really? "You can stay with me. It's really not a big deal. You're there most of the time anyway."

Bill's face settled into stubborn lines. "It's fine. Travie's got a couch I can borrow for a couple days. Exorcisms don't take that long, right?"

"So long as no-one starts vomiting pea soup, I guess not?" 

"You see? Everything'll be peachy before you know it. Well," Bill winced and gestured to the ruined walls with his coffee cup. "After a couple rounds of Dulux."

""Yeah, but." Gabe took a fortifying gulp of coffee. Bill could be surprisingly dense when he put his mind to it. "I like having you around."

Bill frowned. "I'm a horrible houseguest. And I take ages in the bathroom."

"None of this is a surprise, Bill, I've shared living space with you before."

"I know, but a week is a pretty long time to -"

"I'm not talking about a week," a headache was starting to pound behind Gabe's eyes. "I mean, like, permanently. You. Move in. With me. We do this... thing," Gabe tried to explain. "Where we meet up and fuck and then you vanish for weeks on end and you turn up again and we have an awesome time -"

"Like last night?" Bill said ironically. Gabe ignored him.

"It would be much easier to keep track of you if we were living together."

"Gabe, I appreciate it, I really do," Bill said slowly, "but I'm - I'm, like, a good-time guy, and not much more, OK?" Gabe frowned and went to interrupt, but Bill held up his hand to stop him, staring down into his coffee. "And I think maybe I'm OK with that, you know? I'm not sure I want to be anything else right now. Moving in with you..."

"Would be too much?" The words tasted like acid. "OK then, sorry."

Bill looked apologetic but not repentant, though there was something strangely like regret in the set of his mouth. "It was - I mean, thank you. _Really_ , thank you. But I'llc rash with Travie, or see if I can bully Adam into letting me stay for a bit, bullshit about renovations or whatever. And - I _love_ this flat. I don't wanna leave it."

"Yeah, no, I get it," Gabe said, without looking at him. "Don't worry about it. So, um. I guess we'd better see about an exorcism or something."

Bill laughed, a little humourlessly. "Yeah. Let me just check craigslist for an exorcist, I bet they're easy to find, right?" Gabe huffed an unwilling laugh. "Um. Since I've gotta repaint everything anyway, why don't we start with your idea?"

"Huh?" Gabe said, thrown.

"I think I've got a crowbar somewhere in here," Bill said vaguely.

"Of course you do," Gabe said, frowning. "What-"

"I've got to redecorate, so what's a little renovation to add to the list?" Bill said. "Let's go dig up my wall. Or maybe it's under the floorboards?"

Gabe knew Bill was pretty much just throwing him a bone to make up for letting him down not-quite-gently, but it gave him something concrete to do and focus on. "Sure. I've always wanted to dig up floorboards looking for bodies."

"I knew it," Bill ducked down in front of the kitchen sink and started hauling things out. 

"You keep a crowbar under the sink?" Gabe shook his head. "Weird, man."

"I know it's here somewhere," Bill's voice was muffled, his head and shoulders fully inside the cupboard. "I'm sure I had one. When I came up from Chicago all my stuff came in crates and I had to -" there was a muted thud "- aha! We have a crowbar!"

"Good?" Gabe volunteered weakly. The idea of a sleep-deprived and very shaken Bill wielding a potentially lethal instrument was not the most comforting one ever. Bill grinned and casually swung the crowbar around in a circle, narrowly missing a table lamp. "Jesus!" Gabe grabbed it from him. "Okay, no. I get the crowbar. You just... stand there and look pretty."

"It's what I'm good at," Bill agreed glumly as they went back into the bedroom, coffee abandoned. "No-one lets me have any fun."

"And with reason." They stood in front of handprint-covered wall and stared at it for a moment. It was amazing how unthreatening it appeared in daylight. 

"I could sell it as modern art," Bill muttered, giving the wall an appraising look. "D'you think there's much market for haunted houses?"

"Dunno. Always worth a try. Make some extra cash before your next record. Right," Gabe scanned the floor. "Where do you wanna try first?"

"Um," Bill considered the wall, and pointed rather haphazardly, at a place where the handprints seemed thickest. "Try there, I guess?"

Gabe nodded and hefted the crowbar in what he thought was probably a business-like manner. He took a deep breath, glanced at Bill (who was biting his lip and looking nervous), then brought the crowbar down on the wall.

It went straight through.

"Um?" he said staring at the hole in Bill's wall, which appeared to be made of plaster and ply-board, and was clearly incapable of either withstanding a crowbar or burying any body. "I don't think it's in here, dude."

"Oh, you think?" Bill said, but there was no bite to his words. "So, what's next then?"

"Er. I guess the floor?"

They both glanced down at the floor, which was made of varnished wood, giving the flat a 'sophisticated' air, according to Bill. Bill, who had been much attached to the hardwood flooring, sighed, and shrugged. "You've already taken a chunk out of my wall. Have at it."

"OK," Gabe said. "This might be harder, I guess. I've never exactly taken up floorboards before."

"Want me to have a go?"

"No - no, really, no," Gabe said quickly, then realised that he might be kneeling on top of a dead body and shuffled hastily backwards. "OK, right. Here goes."

It was fiddly, getting the curved end of the crowbar under one of the floorboards, but he eventually managed it, and yanked as hard as he could upwards. Nothing noticeable happened.

"Maybe try levering it up instead?"

"Since when are you Mr. Hardware?" Gabe asked, a healthy dollop of snark in his voice, but he took Bill's advice and levered up against the board, pressing his full weight against it. Finally it gave, with a horrible wrenching noise, and Gabe carefully pulled it back, avoiding the nails sticking out.

There was definitely something under it, something wrapped in plastic sacking, which looked distinctly like it might be a _body_.

Bill peered over his shoulder. "No," he said, voice hushed. "No fucking way."

"We don't know anything yet, dude," Gabe reminded him. "It could just be insulation, or something." But his voice sounded uncertain even to his own ears, and Bill wasn't exactly looking reassured. "I think I'm gonna have to take a few more of these up."

Bill gave the floor a martyred look and then stepped back, gesturing Gabe forward. "Of course."

It took six further floorboards before the plastic-wrapped shape could be properly identified as anything at all. They stood around the gaping hole in the floor. Tentatively, Gabe reached forward and poked the shape with the crowbar, dislodging some of the plastic wrapping. 

The plastic fell aside and they lurched back as an indescribable, horrible smell rose up from the floor. 

It was unmistakeably a body, but there was something wrong with it. Unconsciously gripping Bill's hand with his own, Gabe forced himself to look at the pathetic bundle wedged between two joists. It was... mangled was the only word Gabe's brain could come up with. What must have been limbs were bent out of shape at angles no body was meant to move in. The spine - Gabe thought it was the spine - was twisted at an unnatural angle and the matted head hung weirdly and out of proportion with the rest of the body. Remembering the ghost's face the night before, Gabe felt his stomach rebel. At that moment, Bill wrenched his hand from Gabe's and staggered to the bathroom. Gabe leant back against the bed and wiped his clammy hands on his jeans, listening to Bill retch. The body shoved under the floor looked small and forgotten.

"That," Bill said hoarsely from the doorway, "is simultaneously the saddest and most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life." He edged around the bed to join Gabe, shoulders slumping as he peered down at the body. 

"Right?" Gabe said dully. Faced with _that_ , there wasn't much else he could think to say. There was a pause. Bill scrubbed his hands over his face.

"Do you think that's... it?" he muttered softly through his fingers. "The ghost?"

"I dunno. Could be," Gabe said, still staring at the twisted lump. "Um. What do you want to do now? We can't just leave it there."

"I know."

"On the TV show, they normally burn the bodies, but -"

"You are _not_ burning anything in my house!" Bill said, hurriedly getting up and grabbing the phone. "We're calling the police, you weirdo!"

Gabe nodded, eyes still on the body. "No, I know, we- I don't know... how anyone could burn it. It just looks - fucking tragic, you know, man?"

Bill looked at the body for a long moment, swallowed hard and turned away. "Yeah. _Fuck_." He punched in 911, and Gabe tuned him out, listening with half an ear to Bill tell the operator that he wanted the police and needed to report a body.

He hung around until the police arrived, both of them sitting at the kitchen table - as far away from the body as they could get - with cups of coffee going cold in front of them, neither of them willing to say much. Bill finally broke the silence.

"That was in my _bedroom_ ," he said quietly.

"I know," Gabe said, equally quiet. "Insane."

"What do you think happened to it?" Bill asked, not-quite rhetorically.

"I think someone beat the shit out of _him_ ," Gabe said, irrationally angry that Bill seemed to be dehumanising the body further - not a spirit anymore, an honest-to-god _body_. 

Bill looked both chastened and mulish at the same time. "I don't get it. How come no one noticed before? I mean - it must have _smelt_ , if nothing else."

"I don't know, man," Gabe shrugged. "Maybe the apartment was empty for a while. Maybe-"

"And why did the spirit-"

"Bill, I don't _know_ , OK?" He said tiredly. "I have no idea. You were fucking _haunted_ , I really don't have much of a frame of reference here."

"I know-" Bill said, but was cut off by a bang at the door, which thankfully opened to admit the police. From then on, things devolved into kind of a haze of official questions and red tape, and the body being carefully carted out, transferred to a bodybag. Halfway through, Bill slipped over to Gabe and slid his hand into his, apparently uncaring of all the policemen who could look over and see. 

"If you really don't mind," he said quietly, "I'd really - I mean, I'd really like it if I could stay with you. Just for tonight, maybe."

Gabe squeezed his hand and nodded wordlessly.

When he looked over at Bill's bedroom wall, as Bill packed a couple of things into a bag, it was spotless and totally handprint-free.

**  
They went back to Gabe's apartment and spent the rest of the day in subdued silence. Neither seemed willing to talk, least of all about the goings-on in Bill's apartment, which, when they left, had been wrapped in police tape. The police had promised to give Bill a call when they knew anything. Gabe and Bill slumped round the apartment, largely in separate rooms. Gabe watched DVD after DVD and Bill... did whatever Bill did to calm down. In the evening, Gabe went for a walk and watched the sun set before coming back and making supper, which they ate, barely talking. After supper, Bill washed up and then helped Gabe make up the sofa-bed. It was oddly domestic - and perhaps it was that thought that had Gabe muttering something about an early night and stomping off back to his own room. If Bill didn't want to move in with him, that was fine. It was his choice anyway. And that was a nearly-new apartment. Now a nearly-new, somewhat-wrecked apartment. Whatever. Gabe didn't want to push the issue.

Even though he'd barely slept the night before, Gabe couldn't drop off, even when his clock beeped three am. Bill wasn't asleep either; Gabe could hear him moving around in the sitting room, occasionally arguing with himself, as he did sometimes when something was really bothering him. Gabe wasn't surprised. A haunting and then a corpse ranked pretty highly on the scale of fucked-up shit. 

He must have fallen asleep somewhere near dawn, because when he woke up, sunlight was streaming in through the cracks in the curtains and traffic was roaring outside. Gabe got up, dragged himself through the shower and tiptoed into the front room to make coffee. 

Bill was already awake and sitting at the counter. "Morning," he said, clutching at his coffee cup. He sounded as tired as Gabe felt.

"Yeah. You too. Did you sleep okay?" Gabe poured some coffee into a mug and sat down.

Bill huffed a laugh. "No. No, not really. You?"

"Yeah, no. Couldn't stop thinking about the -"

"Can we not talk about it?" Bill rubbed at the back of his head, looking uneasy. Gabe nodded.

"Yeah, sure," he said, turning to the fridge for something to do. "What d'you want for breakfast?"

"Actually, I think I'm gonna head on out," Bill said a little awkwardly. "I better... the cops will want to -"

"Oh yeah. Sure. Okay."

"Thanks for letting me stay," Bill stood up and grabbed his bag from the bed. "I'll probably see you around some time, yeah?"

There was new awkwardness in the air that definitely hadn't been there the day before. Gabe sighed inwardly. Bill was going to get messed up over this. He never should have mentioned it. 

"Sure, Bilvy. See you round."

**

For two weeks, all was quiet on the William Front, and Gabe started to wonder whether he should get over his own issues and ring Bill when Bill took the issue out of his hands by ringing him. "Bill, whassup?" he asked expansively, hoping to hide his own lingering awkwardness.

"Um, could we - meet up?" Bill said, sounding unsure, and Gabe bit his lip. So they were done, then.

"'Course," he said simply. "Where and when?"

"Three o'clock? Wherever you'd like?"

"Three's fine," Gabe checked the clock - he totally had time to shower and dress before three. "You wanna do this in public or in private?"

Bill sounded a little puzzled when he replied. "I don't really mind," he said. "Public, I guess. How about the Starbucks down the street from you?"

"Sure," Gabe agreed. Bill was apparently expecting him to make some sort of scene, then. "See you there." He hung up the phone without any of his usual extravagant compliments and let Bill draw whatever conclusions he liked from that.

**

When he arrived at the Starbucks, Bill was already at a table, a neat folder in front of him, though why, Gabe had no idea. He'd ordered both his and Gabe's coffee, and Gabe raised an eyebrow, but sat willingly enough when Bill kicked out the chair for him. 

"What's up, then?"

"I found out who our Casper is," Bill said, voice only a little quieter than normal.

"Uh-huh?" This wasn't a turn in the conversation that Gabe had expected. "Who?"

"Matthew Finchley. Forty five, manager of a store downtown, disappeared March 17th, 1956." Bill slid the folder across to him. When Gabe opened it, it had four or five printouts of old newspapers in it, mostly snippets with small articles written about the disappearance of a local man, which Bill had highlighted. 

"Disappeared? Last I checked, the poor guy was pretty dead."

"The police interviewed his roommate," Bill said, his voice curiously flat. "Who gave them a 'tall tale' about a group of men dragging Matthew out of bed and beating the shit out of him. Apparently there was no evidence for it, and since everyone in the building knew that Matthew and his roommate weren't sharing an apartment to ease the cost of it, seems to me like the police decided Matthew brought it on himself. For being 'unnatural'."

Gabe's hands twitched at his sides. "Why didn't they go after his roommate, too?" he asked slowly.

"No idea," Bill shrugged, tidying away the folder with almost pathological neatness. "I had to dig pretty hard to find even that much about this." The flat note was still in his voice. "They had baseball bats," he said very quietly. "According to the flatmate. And they beat him till he _died_ , I-" he broke off, hands clenched together on top of the folder. 

Gabe swallowed, feeling bile rise in the back of his throat. "They beat him to death with _bats_ because he was gay? That's... I can't even get my head around it."

"I know," Bill said quietly, curling his hands around his cup and staring at the table. 

"That's disgusting. That's _wrong_. Do the cops know who did it? Were they even convicted? That's one of the most atrocious things I've ever heard.”

“I know,” Bill agreed flatly. “From what his roommate said, his face didn’t look much like a face by the time they’d finished.”

“I don’t get it,” Gabe said dully, the prospect of Bill putting the final nail into the coffin which had been their relationship paling in comparison to Matthew Finchley’s death. “It’s – I can’t even-”

“Yeah, I know.”

They sat in silence for a few long minutes. “Well, I’d – I need some time to process this,” Gabe said finally, “so I’m gonna head off. I’ll – see you around, OK?” Even for Gabe, it seemed way too masochistic to want to spend time around the guy he loved who clearly didn’t feel the same way.

“Before you go,” Bill’s voice was very quiet, but Gabe stopped anyway. “I was – scared-”

“Dude,” Gabe said, almost gently. “You had a ghost after you, of course you were.”

“No, not of that,” Bill’s eyes were fixed on the tabletop. “I was scared, before, but given what Matthew and his roommate went through, it – really doesn’t seem so frightening to tell you that I love you.”

“You,” Gabe paused. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I love you,” Bill repeated, though it might have been a little more convincing had he actually looked Gabe in the eye to say it. “I should have said it before, but I kind of had to get over myself.”

"Yeah, well, I never exactly said it either. Leaps of faith are fucking terrifying, man," Gabe murmured, gulping down some more coffee. “I, um. I do, you know. Love you.”

He watched Bill toy with his cup as he tried to find the words. Fantastically self-absorbed as Bill could be at times, he was never very good at talking about his feelings. “All of this happened kind of out of the blue, and it got me thinking, I guess. I mean, you and I have this thing. And it's not perfect, but it's good. And Matthew Finchley didn't get any of that... not without dying for it, anyway.” He threaded his fingers together, and finally looked up at Gabe. “So... I, um. Decided I'd say it. I love you. Funny, it sounds so stupid when I say it, but -"

"It doesn't sound stupid," Gabe interrupted. "It sounds great. You should say it all the time. You love me. And I love you." Bill gave him a sharp look. Gabe gave him his most insouciant smile in return.

It seemed to reassure him all the same. "Oh, um." Bill dropped his eyes, cheeks pink, a tiny smile curling the edges of his mouth. "Okay."

"Right."

"Awesome."

"Yeah." Gabe grinned sheepishly. "So we're idiots."

Bill smiled back. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Um, so... about the whole... moving in thing? Are you still offering?" 

"Nope," Gabe said airily and Bill's eyes widened. "I've sub-let to a group of acrobatic dwarfs. Sorry."

Bill laughed. "Shame. And I was looking forward to destroying all of your appliances, one by one." he sobered a little. "I just... I couldn't stay in my apartment. Not knowing what happened to Matthew."

"Yeah," Gabe said softly, eyes on the folder. "I get it."

Bill took a strangely meditative sip of coffee, and glanced up at Gabe. "So, when can I move in?"

"Whenever you want," Gabe said simply. "I mean, I need to change the sheets, but-"

"Want to help me pack?" Bill asked, and Gabe grinned.

"OK, but if you bring a ghost with you, I will kick its ass and then yours."

"Nah," Bill said, looking down at the folder again. "I think - I hope - Matthew's got closure now."

"I'm sure he has," Gabe said. 

"I'm gonna use the money I'm saving on rent to buy a headstone for him," Bill said quietly, and Gabe nodded. "And - we could see if his roommate’s still alive. I mean, his name must be on public record somewhere."

"Yeah," Gabe nodded. They could plan for these things, and sort them out, and sort out living together in due course. They'd faced down what they'd thought was an angry spirit; Bill was moving in with him. Gabe was pretty sure they could do anything.

**Author's Note:**

> The 'homophobia' and 'homophobic actions (past)' tags are for descriptions of violence perpetrated against a gay man for being gay (he's beaten to death with a baseball bat). The violence is in the past (early fifties), and it's referenced rather than shown. There are no flash-backs to the scene - the reader finds out about it with the modern-day characters - but it very obviously has the potential to be extremely distressing. None of the present-day characters in the fic are themselves homophobic or act homophobically, and the plot does not focus or dwell on this incident.


End file.
